Title: “Bringing a major air traffic control system into operational use – a personal view”
Speaker: Dr Derek Barnes CEng FBCS CITP.
Location: University of Worcester, St.John’s Campus, Room EE1107
Date: 12th February 2014 @ 19:00

Networking and Refreshments from 18:30

In the late 1990s the government had invested some £650M into the “state of the art” Swanwick en-route air traffic control centre. It was not working and was a long way from being ready for operational use.

Derek lead a team that reviewed the whole situation, came up with a plan, advised the Minister (and got all other stakeholders on-board ) to effect a recovery plan such that technical transfer happened exactly as planned. This presentation is a summary of the computing, systems and many human issues involved in getting this complex system to work.

Having gained a joint honours degree and PhD in Physics and Computer Science, Derek joined RSRE and instigated foundation work on computer and communications security (for which he subsequently became a Fellow of the BCS).

He then managed a number of computer intensive business within DRA and DERA, including successfully setting up the Systems and Software Engineering Centre (SEC).

He became a Divisional Managing Director, was part of the team to privatise QinetiQ and became Chief Operating Office of the majority of the UK QinetiQ business before retiring to focus on his various charitable interests.

Today Derek is the Chairman of the Fellows and Senior Principles in the Defence Scientific & Technology Laboratory (Dstl).